To My Reviewers

Nettle: Thank you for the wonderful compliments. I actually just relate the characters to various friends and family members it makes it easier to keep them consistent.

Beaubier: When I saw your reviews, I practically fell out of my seat! It means a lot to have such a wonderful author (whom I practically stole at least the idea for the first chapter from) review my story! I'm glad you like the Alex/Ray pairing...they were a bit of an experiment and I'm happy it worked. Thank you for your review!

Qindarka: Thank you...I think o.O' The St. John/Pietro pairing came from that episode, but I also have a tendency to randomly pair people. I loved the pairing before I saw that episode.

Lissy: Scott's naughty sailor outfit!? I thought only Logan had a naughty sailor outfit!! O.o'

Rogue4eva: There is only slight, flirtatious Remy/Rogue. This takes place a few weeks after the end of the 5th Season and is actually supposed to be fairly realistic. So, therefore, Rogue is still untouchable.

Ellavira: Aren't they though? I once had someone write 'I'm a Spork' on my forehead...of course, it amused me to no end...

Aqua-wishes-kiki: 'Demented', as in a bunch of hyper-active Girl Scouts and waaaay too much time. Thanks for your vote!

SperryDee: Thanks for your vote!

RahneMan: *falls off chair* I take it you wanted them to go swimming? Thanks for your vote!

Flame31: Thanks for your vote!

Avaris: Thanks for your vote!

Taineyah: Thanks for your vote!

Cannonballboy: Lol! You're review made me laugh. Thanks for your vote!

Random Babbling from the Authoress

Technically, Hide'n'Seek didn't win. Capture the Flag was really boring written out (that's why this chapter took so long, I wrote it...then deleted it and started over, twice). Swimming/Skinny Dipping would have taken my rating too high. Also, I am writing about young teenagers...children really...it could easily be construed as child pornography. So, after careful deliberation and two rewrites, we have the following chapter.

This story has gone further than I imagined it would go. I don't know where it will end. From this, I have pieced together my own continuation of Evo, which will have more stories coming soon. I hope to have a whole series for this timeline/arc/whatever.

**

Tabby capped her marker and began to tap her chin thoughtfully. "I'm not sure. Let's go outside, though. It's getting kind of stuffy in here."

"Umm...did you guys notice that I'M STILL ON THE CEILING???"

Piotr reached up and pulled Bobby down from the ceiling.

"Thank you, my good man." Bobby straightened his clothes and sent a glare towards Wanda, who just blinked.

"Hey, I have an idea." Alex squinted blurrily around the room. "Let's play Hide'n'Seek."

Roberto snorted. "What are we, ten?"

"Great idea!" Rogue leapt to her feet and promptly stumbled backwards. Remy attempted to catch her and they just ended up in a giggling pile on the floor.

It took a few more minutes, but everyone managed to get redressed (except those who were missing). They woke up Jean and Scott. Tabby gathered up the spare clothes of the others and began to lead the way to the ground floor.

"Oh fuck. Stairs."

The assembled mutants giggled. After quite a bit of stumbling, giggling, and falling over each other they finally made it to the second floor. Lance, Kitty, John, Pietro, Kurt and Amanda joined them. Amanda snatched her bra from Tabby and put it back on in the bathroom. John somehow managed to struggle into his pants and shirt, with Pietro's help. By the time they started down the second flight of stairs, they all had a major case of giggles...again.

"Alex is It," Bobby declared, "since it was his idea."

"Boundaries are within sight of the house. No going inside," Jean put in quickly. She was trying not to imagine several drunken teenagers wondering around inside the mansion. Jean had also noticed that everyone now had bottles of drinks in their hands. Pietro had even zipped upstairs (Jean didn't stop to wonder how he could still possibly move so quickly) and brought more drinks down.

Piotr sat deliberately in a chair on the patio. "I will supervise." At some point, he'd picked up the vodka bottle and he now cradled it in his hands.

Scott went into drunken-leader mode. "Right, Alex is It and everyone has to stay within sight of the house and outside."

"Thank you, Paraphrase Man!" Lance shouted.

"Shut up, Captain Obvious," Scott retorted oh-so-maturely.

"One, two," Alex began, "three, four, five—"

The mutants scattered.

"—shit, what comes after five?"

~~

Rogue snuck through the bushes. Not really, actually, she tromped loudly through the bushes while giggling, but she certainly thought she was sneaking. Behind her, Remy actually managed to walk quietly (thief instincts). He sang while they walked.

"In eigh'een four'een, we too' a li'le trip, along wi' Colonel Jackson down th' mighty Mississip'. We took a li'le bacon and we took a li'le beans and we fought th' bloo'ee Britosh at th' town of New Orleans." Remy messed up the rhyming scheme of the song by saying 'Or-lahns' instead of 'Or-leens'.

"Shut up! You're going to get us caught, you swamp rat!" Rogue glared cross-eyed at him before collapsing into giggles.

~~

Todd climbed expertly up a tree. Even in his drunken state, he could climb. He squatted quietly in the branches and watched his friends stumble around. Suddenly, he realized he could see everything from this perch. He chuckled evilly.

He could see Remy following Rogue, who was giggling. They seemed to be doing that a lot anymore. John and Pietro were on the gazebo roof, making out, again. Ray was lurking near Alex, trying to hide (unsuccessfully) in the shadows. Everyone else was behind, underneath and up various trees, bushes and pieces of training equipment.

"Hey! Toad! Help me up there!"

Todd looked down and blinked. A pale figure dressed in red was looking up at him, offering her hand. Todd gulped and hopped down a few branches until he could grasp Wanda's hand. He pulled her up to the first branch easily. She smiled and began to climb. For someone who had spent a lot of her life in a mental institution, she was an excellent tree climber.

Soon, the two were perched side-by-side on the highest branch that would hold them. Wanda, being more unsteady than Todd, balanced herself by leaning against the trunk of the tree, straddling the branch.

"Whee! I haven't climbed a tree since I lived with the Maximoffs!" She giggled—a very unWanda-like sound—and smiled widely at Todd.

"Look, yo." Todd pointed to Alex. "He's moving. We have to be quiet."

Wanda nodded solemnly and peered through the foliage.

"Who d'ya think he'll find first?" She asked in a loud voice.

~~

"Shut up, Swamp Rat!" Rogue whispered, exasperated.

Remy closed his mouth and held very still.

Rogue nodded happily. The two were laying low in the bushes by the house on their stomachs. The leaves of Ororo's plants concealed their hideout. Alex would never find them.

"Well, we fired our guns an' th' Britosh kept a-comin'—"

If Remy would stop singing.

~~

Rahne was in full wolf-form. It was easier to move silently through woods when in a body that was made for moving silently through the woods. Not to mention that she could hear everyone and everything that went on around her. It was quite funny really. Bobby and Jubes were throwing acorns at Tabby and Amara, Hide'n'Seek temporarily forgotten. Dani and Evan had teamed up and were hiding behind a dead log. The two were having a whispered conversation about the weather. Dani kept insisting that it was going to rain, 'because the leaves are blowing upside-down'.

The wolf-girl lifted her nose to the wind and found that indeed, Dani was right. She could smell the rain coming. Her ears perked up and she strained a bit, a dim sound of thunder rewarded her efforts. Rahne dropped her jaw in a wolf-grin. No one else would notice the storm until it was on top of them; they were all too drunk.

~~

"My, like, hair is so messy and I'm covered in dirt," Kitty complained.

"I think you look beautiful."

Kitty gave Lance a look. The two were sitting behind a tree, nestled between its roots in a kind of hollow made by the wind. Unless Alex walked the entire way around the tree, he would never find them. Kitty was attempting to fix her hair. Lance was simply enjoying the view.

"Lance, stop, like, staring at me."

~~

"They'll never find us." Jean giggled maniacally as she jumped over the car door into the convertible. She settled down in the back seat, stretching out flat. Scott joined her, slipping in next to her. Jean giggled again. "This is a lot of fun."

"And entirely against the rules, most of it."

"I'm having fun."

"Because you're drunk."

"So're you!"

"I didn't say I wasn't."

"Aren't you having fun?" Jean asked.

Scott sighed and kissed her lips. "Yes."

~~

"Ready or not, here I come!" Alex stood up from his chair and staggered into the yard. He was pelted with acorns. "Ow!" Several voices giggled and shushed each other. Alex peered over the nearest set of bushes into the faces of Bobby, Jubes, Tabby, Amara, Sam, Roberto and Jamie. "Found you."

They responded with more giggles and acorns.

Alex took them back to the patio and told Piotr to make sure they didn't leave. Then, he went in search for the rest. He found Fred behind the equipment shed easily and Pietro and John on the gazebo roof. They pointed out the tree Lance and Kitty were hiding behind.

The surfer stumbled into the woods, looking for Lance and Kitty. They weren't where Pietro and John had said though, so Alex turned back to the house and ran into Ray.

"Oof!"

"Whoa!" Ray grabbed the shorter boy to keep him from falling.

Alex grinned—smirked really—and tackled Ray to the ground, being It forgotten. They rolled a little bit, both trying to come out on top. Ray won and pinned Alex down to the forest floor.

"Found you," Alex mumbled, before meeting Ray's lips with his own.

~~

Kitty snorted with suppressed laughter as she and Lance snuck by the distracted surfer. Ray glanced up from his ministrations on Alex's ear and winked at the two of them. Kitty grinned and winked back, dragging Lance off towards the house. They were all the way to the pool before Lance spoke.

"Nice of Ray to distract him for us."

~~

"Kurt, I think the roof is out-of-bounds." Amanda grinned at her boyfriend.

"Ja, I know. Want to see why I brought you up here?"

"The same reason you 'ported me to your room earlier," Amanda guessed.

Kurt merely shook his head, held up a large bag a water balloons with one hand, and pointed to a spigot with the other. "Vasser balloons, mein liebling."

Amanda peered over the edge of the roof. From this vantage point, she could easily hit most of their friends. Kurt could just as easily get the rest. "Oh, we're evil."

"Quite."

~~

Meanwhile, down on the ground, near the pool, the acorn war had recommenced. Girls against boys this time, with Tabby, Amara, Jubes and Kitty on one team and Bobby, Sam, Roberto and Lance on the other. Jamie threw acorns indescrimitly. Freddy had ducked quietly into the kitchen for a midnight snack; Pietro and John had taken up residence in a pair of deck chairs near Piotr, declaring themselves neutral.

"Hey!" Tabby called out as she ducked behind a decorative plant with Jubes. "Where's Alex?"

Kitty and Lance laughed. "Being distracted," Kitty answered innocently.

Everyone giggled, even if they didn't get it.

~~

"I wonder when Alex will find us," Jean said. She and Scott were still stretched out in the back seat of Scott's convertible.

Scott gave her a funny look. "You said he'd never find us here. Why did we hide at all if you wanted to be found?"

Jean just rolled her eyes. "Don't be stu—"

A large water balloon broke over her face. Two moments later, one landed on Scott's stomach. That one was followed by one on the hood of the car.

"Who's doing that!?" Jean shrieked. She jumped out of the car immediately, only to be hit by another balloon. Scott followed her and the two ran, shrieking and yelling and dodging balloons. They reached the pool a moment later.

Now the balloons had new targets, soon everyone was wet.

No one had the sense to look up. If they had, they would have seen a dark figure with two bright yellow eyes and another with long hair, leaning over the edge of the building, armed with brightly colored balloons.

~~

"How can you predict the weather from leaves?" Evan demanded.

Dani sighed dramatically. "Easy, when they blow upside down, it will rain."

"That's insane," Evan scoffed.

"Is not." Dani glared. "I guess you know oh-so-much about Mother Nature, having lived in New York City and all."

"Hey, I may not be able to live in the woods and eat bark, but I am the nephew of a weather witch."

Dani stood abruptly. "I'm going back to the house." She turned on her heel and slipped into the woods, walking between the trees quietly.

A few moments and one weird sound later, Evan was running after her, calling out apologies.

~~

Most of the mutant teenagers made their way back to the pool area. Rogue and Remy were chased out of the bushes by water balloons as soon as Jean had the good sense to put up a TK shield (which made the entire group by the pool impossible targets). Dani and Evan, who was out of breath, joined a moment later, with Rahne, Wanda and Todd in tow. As soon as Wanda appeared the water balloons ceased and Kurt and Amanda 'ported into a chair. Alex and Ray stumbled up last, covered with leaves, holding hands and grinning like idiots.

Everyone collapsed in various deck chairs, laughing and giggling and throwing the occasional acorn.

No one except Rahne and Dani noticed the approaching storm.